I waited.
“Usually six-three to six-four.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Two-forty minimum,” Amber called from behind us.
Evie added, “Covered in tattoos.”
Skye shrugged. “And leather.”
“Motorcycle club,” Regan finished.
I stared at them. “That’s a thing?”
Amber laughed. “It’s very much a thing.”
Savannah leaned close to my ear. “Rule one. Don’t look at our men.”
I blinked.
She smiled sweetly. “We’ll be nice. Until we’re not.”
I stared at her, then laughed. “I swore off men.”
She tilted her head. “That sounds like a story.”
“It is.”
Savannah handed back my keys and hooked her arm through mine again. “Good. We like stories.”
Back at the table, margarita number two landed in front of me.
I shouldn’t have touched it.
I did.
And somehow, because apparently exhaustion, fear, and female kindness were a chemical solvent, I told them everything. The professor. The lies. The rain. The field trip. The night in the mountains. The ghosting. Seeing him again. The fiancée. The ring. The humiliation. The apartment. Bandit. The job. The road. And now this strange little desert detour with a dying truck and women who collected strays.
By the end, the table had gone quiet.
Amber shook her head. “What a dick.”
Evie raised her glass. “Sounds like you won and she got stuck with a cheater.”
Regan lifted hers too. “To fresh starts.”
I looked around the table at strangers who somehow didn’t feel like strangers anymore, then lifted my glass.
“To fresh starts.”
Glass hit glass, and for the first time since this entire insane trip started, I didn’t feel alone.
The Airbnb was bigger than it had any right to be.
It sat low against the desert like it had grown there, all adobe walls, wide wooden beams, a stone walkway, and warm yellow light spilling from the windows. String lights glowed over the patio. The whole place looked like luxury had gotten lost in the dirt and decided to stay. I parked crooked under a mesquite tree because I was tired, my depth perception had become theoretical, and the truck’s engine was ticking hard enough to make me reconsider prayer.
Bandit screamed from the cab like I’d kidnapped him, which—technically—fair.
